Fingertips
by CatBru
Summary: (Probably closer to the T rating because it's about as nondescript as you can get.) Sometimes, even when things are okay, your heart remembers when they weren't and panics.


Rated M(ish) for nondescriptive sexy times

Nibbles at 5x11, touches 5x20, mostly post 5x22 but before the sixth season. (Why? Because I just caught up after losing the show about halfway through season four.)

(Also thanks to avenuepotter for looking at this in the beginning even if she doesn't watch the show.)

* * *

Her fingertips brushed against his as she took the sword, not wanting the contact to end but it did.

And then, one two, skip a few, and she was in the Underworld, wading through ex lovers and a dead brother to bring him back.

She almost had. Told him she would and after a while he wanted her to.

Then Hades.

Never trust a man who could set his own head on fire and not feel the burn.

His fingertips nearly scorched hers as he tried to hold on, nearly imprinted his fingerprints against her own, that moment before he gripped the grate.

She almost wished she could have listened to her gut, to drop down to the floor of the hellevator for _more._ But she hadn't.

Not for herself. If it had only been that she'd been worried about, she would have held on and not let go until she was forced to, stomach pressed flat against the floor and shoulder near dislocation just so she could feel his touch that much longer. But it hadn't been just for her. It had been just for him, too, and as it was it had been near impossible for him to let her go.

And his face, just before he clenched his jaw in determination, would haunt her dreams and languish in her nightmares even more than piercing him with Excalibur would.

But even on the ride up, even as she clutched that hand into a fist to keep the feel of him alive for as long as possible, she knew it wasn't enough. She knew there would be questions, for where he was and why he wasn't there, and that tiny part of her that screamed at her for being a failure wished the questions would come from one person after another. Not in a group.

She'd failed him and she deserved the lancing through her chest with each retelling, as opposed to a group. But a group there was, as though the gods themselves were being kind to her, and she hated them for it.

And then, well. One, two, skip a few, and he was back. The same gods she had hated, or at least one of them, brought him back to where he belonged, and she was grateful for it.

She told him she loved him in a quiet moment, a stolen silence between another separation and the cacophony of family. Before that, the closest admission she'd come to had been during a quiet moment, and even then it hadn't been legitimate, not really, and far too long ago.

And she's never been good with words. Not really, not when they _counted._ And she hoped that now, with her hips rolling and him seated deep within her as she hovered over them, she didn't _need_ to say those words. She hoped he could feel them with how her body moved above his, could taste the words on the tip of her tongue, where they always were, as her lips panted against his.

And things were _fine._ Everything was _okay._ But then he went to move his hand from hers, to untangle their fingers, and panic and fear both clawed at her insides until her grip on his hand was tight and her nails bit sharp little crescents into his knuckles. "No."

His eyes snapped open, hazy with lust and love but also confusion. "What...I don't...what?"

And he tried to move away, a subconscious response to her negative, but her thighs gripped at his hips as another surge of panic flared through her.

She felt foolish. Of course she did. He was hard inside her and her knuckles were white against his fingers and not in the way they should have been. And she wasn't sure if she saw a hilt or an elevator gate between his fingers, or even air because he always seemed to be reaching for her when he died, even in times when he had no idea who she was.

"I just…" She swallowed, and it was thick with no idea how to continue. Because usually she did okay. Earlier that _day_ even they had been walking, fingers entwined, and when he'd pulled his hand away to answer his cell there hadn't been that jolt of panic that was usually there but quickly forgotten, that feeling that happened less and less the longer he'd been home.

His hand relaxed as his fingertips brushed against the back of her own knuckles. His eyebrows furrowed, but not with pity or confusion, but with understanding of sorts, and he nodded. "Alright."

His hook was cool against her cheek, her jaw, and by the time it reached her ribs it was warm and her hips were rolling again. His hand stayed in her grip, because he _knew,_ and this time when her knuckles turned white it was for a different reason.


End file.
